What do you know about Lyme disease?

Matt Hancock: "It's commonly transferred from ticks. The president of our company got it. He was disabled for a while."

Hook staff

John Kapelos: "I know very little about Lyme disease. What I know is that it is something that you catch outdoors and something that gets into your system and that you get very, very ill from very quickly."

Hook staff

Roberta Turner: "It is transmitted by tick bite. I don't believe there's a cure for it, but it does cause chronic fatigue. Some people actually suffer from it for years."

5 comments

Helen Nicholaou May 19th, 2011 | 6:56am

According to the CDC, "Lyme disease is one of the most rapidly emerging infectious diseases in North America and Europe. In 2009, nearly 30,000 confirmed and more than 8,500 probable cases of Lyme disease were reported to the CDC in the United States alone. Named after a small Connecticut town, Lyme disease is transmitted to humans by the bite of ticks infected with the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. This multi-system infection typically occurs in stages with different clinical manifestations at each stage. While it can be treated effectively with antibiotics, in some cases recovery may be incomplete - although there is no evidence that any of these post-Lyme disease syndromes respond to further courses of antibiotic therapy."

The CDC has just launched a new website about tick-borne diseases at www.cdc.gov/Lyme This is the ultimate in up-to-date information about Lyme disease in an easy to format. It has information for patients and medical professionals. There is even a free online communication toolkit packed with information to help state and local health departments prevent Lyme disease.

Chronically ill patients are being exploited and harmed by unscrupulous medical providers diagnosing them with a condition called Chronic Lyme disease. There seems to be little dispute among the medical community anymore that untreated Lyme disease, as with many infectious diseases, may result in chronic symptoms or incomplete recovery. There is a back-story to this chronic Lyme disease epidemic that should make your blood boil with anger about medical experimentation on chronically ill patients at the hands of licensed medical providers commonly referred to as LLMDs, Lyme Literate Medical Doctors.

John Walton Giuliano May 19th, 2011 | 4:21pm

I know it's a Nazi bioweapon the CIA released on the public on purpose! Of course, you'd only believe me if you read that in the Hook, because they're the local gatekeepers of reality! Yipppee!!!

I just watched a well-done documentary on Lyme tonight, Under Our Skin. Worth the watch, and you can stream it on Netflix.http://www.underourskin.com/

Alice Branch June 1st, 2011 | 11:37am

Lyme literate doctors are compassionate physicians who risk their medical licenses trying to help people suffering with Lyme and the co-infections it brings. If your dog got Lyme, the vet would continue the antibiotics until all symptoms were gone. If you got Lyme, one round of antibiotics and you are pronounced "cured." Any symptoms you have are deemed "psychological" - just "get over it." Look online to see the "tip of the iceberg" of Lyme patients who suffering with this horrible disease. Chances are, if you have been diagnosed with MS, chronic fatigue syndrone, Lupus, or Fibromyalgia, you actually have Lyme or one of its co-infections. A friend of mine was diagnosed with ALS and when he was wheelchair bound, the dr. said,"Ooops, it is actually Lyme disease." He died.